Take Control of Your Health

If you're ready to take control of your health, start by washing your hands for 15 to 20 seconds, about as long as it takes to sing "Happy Birthday" twice. Doing this simple act, while avoiding certain behaviors - smoking, excessive drinking and eating too much - can dramatically improve your health, said internist William Meller, who specializes in evolutionary medicine in Santa Barbara, Calif.

Prevention goes well beyond the mammograms, prostate screenings or blood tests that we can get at the doctor's office. It's the little steps you take that can keep you healthy. Here are 10 easy ways to get started.

Take a walk. Humans are designed to be on the move, Meller said. "Walking triggers all of our bodily systems: digestion, stress relief, thinking and preparation for sleep."

It's easy, simple, free and confers the benefits of exercise without the risk of damage from more energetic pursuits, Meller said. Walk every day - barefoot is fine - and get a pedometer to track your steps, shooting for a minimum of 10,000. Stay committed by setting walking dates with a friend.

Keep a food journal. Writing down everything you eat can double your weight loss, according to a study published in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine.

"The more food records people kept, the more weight they lost," said lead author Jack Hollis, a researcher at Kaiser Permanente's Center for Health Research.

Scribble down your dietary transgressions on a note pad, use an online food journal or send yourself text messages.

His most confused patients seem to be doing everything right but may have two glasses of milk, one glass of juice and one glass of wine a day.

"A well-balanced diet replete with fruits, vegetables and proteins should satisfy all of one's nutritional needs," Freedhoff said. "Liquid calories are not satiating and in studies tend only to add calories to a meal."

Strengthen your muscles. If you want to keep your muscles from weakening as you age, start strength training. It's "the only style of exercise that maintains and increases lean muscle tissue and burns between 22 and 36 calories per day," said personal trainer Jim Karas.

He suggests starting with push-ups for the upper body and lunges and squats for the lower body.

Chill out. Stressed-out people are more vulnerable to colds and other viruses, they take longer to recover from illness, and they gain more weight than their relaxed counterparts, research has shown.

We also know that "the inability to feel in control of stress, rather than the stressful event itself, is the most damaging to immunity," wrote Joan Borysenko in "Mending the Body, Mending the Mind."

Eat out less. We often use restaurants in the same way our parents used supermarkets, one of the main reasons for the dramatic global rise in chronic diseases such as obesity, Type 2 diabetes and heart disease, Freedhoff said.

Be a social butterfly. Human beings are social creatures, if only because we need to reproduce. But research has shown that joining a club or sports team, belonging to a church group or keeping in contact with friends creates a sense of social identity that can help significantly reduce your risk of having a stroke, dementia and even the common cold.

"We do not outgrow our need for others," according to the MacArthur Foundation Study of Aging in America. "Loneliness breeds both illness and early death."

Get some sleep. Sleeping well is the single most overlooked factor critical to good health, especially during the flu season, said sleep specialist Dr. Rubin Naiman, an assistant professor at the University of Arizona's Center for Integrative Medicine. But because focusing on doing all the right things before bed can make it harder to sleep, Naiman suggests lightening things up, perhaps by watching comedy on television before bed.

"Too often sleep is approached with an anxious mind and heavy heart," he said. "Laughter is good medicine - and good sleep medicine. I recommend it over sleeping pills."

Choose a baked potato instead of French fries, eat whole wheat bread instead of white bread, or start the day with oatmeal, rather than a sugary breakfast cereal.

Find your passion. Do things that bring meaning to your days, said Patricia Boyle, a neuropsychologist in the Alzheimer's Disease Center at the Rush University Medical Center in Chicago, whose research has shown that having a higher purpose can reduce the risk of death among older adults.

"Purpose is cognitively stimulating, and this is very much along the lines of the adage 'Use it or lose it,' which certainly has merit," said Dr. Thomas Perls, director of the New England Centenarian study.